Kent Bush: Reaction from both sides of gay marriage debate misses the point

Tuesday

Apr 28, 2009 at 12:01 AMApr 28, 2009 at 8:30 AM

Unless you live in a cave, you know that Miss California lost the Miss USA Pageant primarily because the beliefs she expressed in the interview portion of the contest didn't reflect those of the judges. You all probably know that Carrie Prejean was expected to win the pageant until she was asked by an openly homosexual judge - who rose to prominence by outing other homosexuals in showbiz on his web site under an assumed name - what she thought of gay marriage.

Kent Bush

Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread. I waited about a week. What does that make me?

Unless you live in a cave, you know that Miss California lost the Miss USA Pageant primarily because the beliefs she expressed in the interview portion of the contest didn't reflect those of the judges.

You all probably know that Carrie Prejean was expected to win the pageant until she was asked by an openly homosexual judge -- who rose to prominence by outing other homosexuals in showbiz on his Web site under an assumed name -- what she thought of gay marriage.

Prejean answered that she has always been taught, and thus she believes, that marriage should be between one man and one woman.

What most would see as an answer that fell comfortably inside a traditional worldview has been received with scorn and vitriol. She was called ignorant and intolerant -- among other things -- because of her beliefs.

They asked her what she thought. What should she have said?

Of course she has been attacked and slurred by gay rights advocates.

They have their point of view, and she disagrees. However, if she said about them what they are saying about her, it would be a hate crime. One openly gay English lawmaker, Alan Duncan, even said, "If you read that Miss California has been murdered, you will know it was me, won't you?"

Later, he said it was a joke.

Hilarious.

Being a nice-looking straight girl from California apparently isn't all it's cracked up to be. Why are these gay rights advocates so shocked that Miss California is against gay marriage? Didn't a majority of that state just vote to ban the practice with Proposition 8 in November? She is in the majority.

Equally puzzling to me, however, has been the ridiculous response from those in the faith community holding up Homophobe Barbie as a paragon of political peroration.

Politics and religion are a lot like horse manure and chocolate ice cream. (Guess which one is the manure.)

You can add one tiny teaspoon of manure to a 5-gallon bucket of ice cream and ruin the whole batch. But no matter how much ice cream you add to the manure, it never becomes any more palatable.

Let's take a philosophy lesson from a bracelet and ask, "What would Jesus do?"

Even in his life 2,000 years ago, Jesus ran into a few people whose lifestyles didn't please him.

We see Jesus with tax collectors -- men who purchased the right to tax their own countrymen in order to fund a marauding army who mistreated them. He dined with Zacheas and sought a change in his heart because he had come "to seek and save that which was lost." People were shocked that he showed love to the most unlovable among them.

We see Jesus intervene when an adulterous woman was about to be stoned by the religious folks of the day. Jesus didn't approve of her actions.

However, instead of grabbing a few stones and practicing his fastball, he wrote something in the dirt and then asked those among them without sin to cast the first stone. Obviously, none of the protesters was able to qualify as a stone thrower that day, and Jesus sent the woman home and told her to "go forth and sin no more."

In fact, the only time we really see Jesus protest anything in the Bible was when the religious folks were turning the synagogue into the original strip mall. He drove the moneychangers out of the temple and restored order.

Bringing politics into religion to incite the passions of otherwise disinterested disciples by giving them a "thou" whom they can be holier than is not a Christlike act. If anything, it is the height of hypocrisy to point at a sin of another as though your own slate were clean.

Would Jesus have supported gay marriage? That's unlikely.

God created the family with a man and wife and offspring. The Bible doesn't have many positive things to say about homosexuality.

Maybe if Christians were speaking the truth in love rather than lining up to stone the sinners, they would reach more people with the message that brought them to the church in the first place.

Being right isn't enough. Your motivations have to be as pure as your message.

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